Chapter 4

The first photograph I saw that morning showed my husband smiling beside the woman he planned to marry.

LUCIAN MONTCLAIR CELEBRATES HIS SIGHT—AND REUNITES WITH THE WOMAN WHO WAITED FOR HIM

Seraphine stood beneath the ballroom lights wearing his family’s sapphire.

In the background, I was on my knees beside the broken glasses.

The caption identified me as Lucian Montclair’s former caregiver, assisting after a minor disruption.

My phone vibrated.

Lucian: A driver will collect you at ten.

Not Where are you?

Not Are you safe?

He had already decided I was coming back.

Maren entered the guest room carrying two mugs of coffee.

“You’re awake.” She followed my gaze to the photograph. “God, Wren. Why were you even at the Montclair gala?”

I locked the screen.

“Because Lucian is my husband.”

Coffee spilled over the rim of her mug.

“What?”

“We’ve been married for three years.”

Maren set both mugs down.

“You told me you lived at the estate because you were illustrating his recovery memoir.”

“I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“Why?”

“After the accident, reporters were outside the hospital every day. Lucian said announcing a marriage would turn his recovery into a spectacle.”

“And you believed him?”

“He promised it was temporary.”

The words sounded different in daylight.

“He said when he could see again, he would tell everyone himself.”

Maren sat beside me.

“Do you want to go back?”

I looked at the ring still circling my finger.

Part of me remembered Lucian before the ballroom. The man who reached for me in his sleep. The man who knew my footsteps from the other side of the house.

My phone vibrated again.

Lucian: Grandmother was out of line. Ignore the papers she gave you.

Relief came so quickly it embarrassed me.

Then another message appeared.

Lucian: You don’t need the Boston apartment. You belong at home.

Home.

Where Seraphine would be his fiancée and I would put in his eye drops after the guests left.

I typed one question.

Me: Will you correct the story?

The reply did not come immediately.

I watched the screen for three full minutes.

Lucian: Not while the press is watching. Come home and we’ll discuss it privately.

He still wanted me.

He simply did not want anyone to know what I was.

I opened my laptop.

The search I had entered in the car remained on the screen.

Maren watched me open the website of a Boston family-law firm.

“You don’t have to file because you’re angry,” she said.

“I know.”

“But you also don’t have to stay because he expects you to.”

The firm’s secure intake form asked whether the marriage was legal.

I selected Yes.

It asked for the date.

I entered the winter morning Lucian and I had stood before a judge in a private room at the rehabilitation hospital.

He had been blind then.

His fingers had missed mine twice before he found my hand and pushed the ring into place.

“One day,” he had whispered, “I’m going to see you wearing this.”

Now he had seen it.

He had called me the help anyway.

I removed the ring and placed it beside the laptop.

The next field asked for our date of separation.

Three years of marriage ended in a blank white box asking for a date.

I entered today’s.

For the reason, I selected Irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.

No box asked how many nights I had stayed awake beside him.

There was nowhere to record the first time he walked toward the sound of my voice.

The law did not need our love story.

It only needed to know that it was over.

I uploaded the scanned marriage certificate from my documents folder.

The final page explained that authorizing the filing would allow the firm to prepare and submit the divorce petition. It would begin proceedings, not end the marriage immediately.

My phone rang.

Lucian Montclair calling.

I let it stop.

A blue button waited beneath the image of our marriage certificate.

FILE PETITION FOR DIVORCE

My phone rang again.

Then a message appeared.

Lucian: Elowen, answer me. Now.

I placed my finger over the trackpad.

If I returned, what exactly would I be returning to?

Not a marriage.

A hiding place.

For three years, I had answered every time Lucian called my name.

This time, I pressed the button instead.